From Folk Psychology to Cognitive Science: The Case against Belief.

People suffering from severe monothematic delusions, such as Capgras, Fregoli, or Cotard patients, regularly assert extraordinary and unlikely things. For example, some say that their loved ones have been replaced by impostors. A popular view in philosophy and cognitive science is that such monothematic delusions aren't beliefs because they don't guide behaviour and affect in the way that beliefs do. Or, if they are beliefs, they are somehow anomalous, atypical, or marginal beliefs. We present evidence from five studies that folk psychology unambiguously views monothematic delusions as stereotypical beliefs. This calls into question widespread assumptions in the professional literature about belief's stereotypical functional profile. We also show that folk psychology views delusional patients as holding contradictory beliefs. And we show that frequent assertion is a powerful cue to belief ascription, more powerful than even a robust and consistent track record of non-verbal behaviour.

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Folk psychology, eliminativism, and the present state of connectionism

Theoria Beograd ◽

10.2298/theo2101173s ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 64 (1) ◽

pp. 173-196

Author(s):

Vanja Subotic

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Science ◽

Cognitive Processing ◽

Folk Psychology ◽

Short Term Memory ◽

Distributed Processing ◽

Cognitive Architecture ◽

Propositional Attitudes ◽

Connectionist Models ◽

Short Term ◽

Long Short Term Memory

Three decades ago, William Ramsey, Steven Stich & Joseph Garon put forward an argument in favor of the following conditional: if connectionist models that implement parallelly distributed processing represent faithfully human cognitive processing, eliminativism about propositional attitudes is true. The corollary of their argument (if it proves to be sound) is that there is no place for folk psychology in contemporary cognitive science. This understanding of connectionism as a hypothesis about cognitive architecture compatible with eliminativism is also endorsed by Paul Churchland, a radical opponent of folk psychology and a prominent supporter of eliminative materialism. I aim to examine whether current connectionist models based on long-short term memory (LSTM) neural networks can back up these arguments in favor of eliminativism. Nonetheless, I will rather put my faith in the eliminativism of the limited domain. This position amount to the following claim: even though that connectionist cognitive science has no need whatsoever for folk psychology qua theory, this does not entail illegitimacy of folk psychology per se in other scientific domains, most notably in humanities, but only if one sees folk psychology as mere heuristics.

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The Fitness Relevance of Counterintuitive Agents

Journal of Cognition and Culture ◽

10.1163/15685373-12340081 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 20 (3-4) ◽

pp. 188-217

Author(s):

Thomas Swan ◽

Jamin Halberstadt

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Science ◽

Folk Psychology ◽

Memory Bias ◽

Cognitive Science Of Religion ◽

Potential Threat ◽

Folk Physics ◽

Science Of Religion ◽

Potential Opportunity ◽

Better Than

Abstract Cognitive scientists have attributed the ubiquity of religious narratives partly to the favored recall of minimally counterintuitive (MCI) concepts within those narratives. Yet, this memory bias is inconsistent, sometimes absent, and without a functional rationale. Here, we asked if MCI concepts are more fitness relevant than intuitive concepts, and if fitness relevance can explain the existence and variability of the observed memory bias. In three studies, participants rated the potential threat and potential opportunity (i.e., fitness relevance) afforded by agents with abilities that violated folk psychology, physics, or biology (i.e., MCI abilities). As in previous work, agents with MCI abilities were recalled better than those with intuitive abilities. Additionally, agents with MCI abilities were perceived as greater threats, and as providing greater opportunities, than agents with intuitive abilities, but this perceived fitness relevance only mediated the memory bias when MCI abilities were used to accomplish disproportionally consequential outcomes. Minimally counterintuitive abilities that violated folk psychology were rated more intuitive and more of an opportunity than violations of folk physics or biology, while folk physics violations were recalled best. Explanations for these effects and their relevance to the cognitive science of religion are discussed.

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